Winter (again), and in a pretty big way. As in shovel, shovel, shovel, brrrr…
It seems pretty clear at this point we’ll have snow for Christmas.
Category Archives: Life
November Coding Binge
A few posts ago I wrote that for “two weeks I’ve indulged in intense 12+ hour days on a self-education project in Python and its Tk module.” The end result of the binge is seven new apps (so far; more to come) and a good starting grasp of how to make some fairly decent windowing apps in Microsoft Windows using out-of-the-box Python.
More concretely, my “tk” project folder has 14 Python files with over 9,000 lines of code (367,000+ characters). That’s what remains. I didn’t save the many false starts, tests, and trials. Suffice to say I probably wrote close to twice as much code.
This post is “Dear Diary” entry for documenting the progress, the fun, and the frustration. It may not be terribly interesting for anyone else, but I learned a lot and (ultimately) really enjoyed the experience. And it’s nice to find out that this ancient dog can still learn new tricks.
And so, it begins…
Winter, that is.
Last evening, we had rain that turned to snow after midnight. The result, of course, it a bit of an icy mess.
25,567.5 Days
Every once in a while, it’s time to update my 960 Months image:
See Only 960 for an explanation.
Stay ticking, my friends! Go forth and spread beauty and light.
∇
Old Notes II
As we slide into leafy glory of Midwestern fall — the Autumnal Equinox, my least favorite day of the year lurking dead ahead — thoughts turn nostalgic for the dying summer and by extension all those long-dead summers that tail behind.
The older we get, the longer our 4D tail back through the years to our first. As different as we become over time, there is a continuity that defines us.
This post, as did the last one, has notes from 40+ years ago — still a goodly fraction more than half my span (thus far), so these are definitely from my callow youth.
Old Notes I
It’s hard for me to believe 2025 is already sliding into fall. The leaves are starting to turn — the trees are ending their annual breath. Some geese are heading south — unmistakable signs that winter is coming. There’s been a chill in the air.
Another orbit around our star, another year torn from the calendar. For an old farts like me, it pulls my thoughts backwards through all those discarded calendar pages.
The usual stream of the new pushed aside a pair of ancient note piles (mid-sized spiral-bound notebooks, actually) that date back to college and high school. It’s time to let the new abide a bit and dig up these time capsules (so I can at long last throw away those agèd notebooks).
All in a Day
The last post, Smoke Alarm Saga, concerned the frustrations with my smoke alarms and the service vendor who installed them — a company whose failings apparently put them out of business.
It wasn’t just the service; the product was bad. Three of the four smoke alarms they installed failed after seven months. In the midst of that frustration — after I’d removed the two my ladder reached but was still plagued by the one 13 feet up — I had a rather strange morning.
One that seemed to fit right in with everything else going on…
Smoke Alarm Saga
Almost exactly six years ago — in September of 2019 — I began having electrical problems. Power outages affected half the lights and plugs in the place. Getting an electrician in to fix it led to what became my worst experience with home service — a six-year saga with a disappointing ending.
More precisely, five-and-a-half years. The unsatisfying conclusion came last May with a faint echo in June. Some fallout persists, a task left unfinished, but the stress is thankfully past.
Here’s what happened…
Skydiving Logbook
About a month after I started this blog (on July 4, 2011), I wrote about my first and second skydives — which were tandem jumps — as well as my first (semi) solo skydive. A year later, I wrote about graduating my training to a full-fledged solo jumper as well as a particularly enjoyable skydiving “boogie”.
My last jump was in September of 1999 when the owners of the drop zone suggested that — because I wasn’t putting in the time needed to improve — that it might be best if I considered another hobby. They were right, and I did.
At that point I had made 50 jumps in two years. Here is my logbook.
Fortjuly Anniversary
So, if a fortnight is 14 days (but counted as nights), then a fortjuly should be 14 years. I suppose it should really be a fortwinter to align with the counting nights aspect. But that would mean we’re on the 13th “day” (year) of this blog, and this post celebrates the blog’s 14th anniversary, so fortjuly it is.
As in: “It has been fourteen years — a fortjuly — since I started this blog.” By other metrics: 1,438 posts (42 pages); 1,996,695 words (damn, just missed it being a cool two-mill); 287,266 sentences; or 63,337 paragraphs.
As usual, there are charts and lists.
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